iraf.net

Hi Jeff,First, let me recommend that you post such problems using the Kitt Peak
"service" command - I'm reading this several hours later and 50 miles
further away than someone on the NOAO staff would otherwise have done.
(I might still be involved in resolving the problem, of course, but
someone else would have been able to respond more quickly - especially
over the weekend).General IRAF questions are always appropriate for iraf@noao.edu, but if
observing at KPNO or WIYN is being adversely affected, service should
be the first line of defense.> I am unable to read/write with TAR from PEARL or VANILLA. Both yield
>
> pearl 38> mt -f /dev/nrst3 status
> /dev/nrst3: no tape loaded or drive offline
> pearl 39> tar -tvf /dev/nrst3
> tar: /dev/nrst3: I/O error
>
> I can however read with RFITS in IRAF the usual way (mtc) from either.Hmmm - if there's a problem with accessing a tape drive from one, but
not both, of Unix and IRAF, it usually happens the other way (works from
Unix but not from IRAF). This is because IRAF has to use Unix to get to
the drive, but it's possible for a boob like me to mess up a tapecap file
(for example) such that IRAF issues inappropriate commands to Unix.In this case, however, I don't see anything wrong with either the Unix
or IRAF configuration. We've had our normal share of difficulties with
the DAT drives at WIYN lately, but no more than any of the other tape
drives scattered around the mountain - certainly other folks have written
DAT tapes on both pearl and vanilla since either the software or hardware
configuration was last changed. This agrees with the fact that you
can use the drive from IRAF.The next obvious culprit is some allocation or permission mismatch.
Since folks usually issue Unix commands and IRAF commands from different
windows, there are any number of ways for the context to differ between
the two - running the command from a different or in the wrong directory
(something we've all done a million times) is only one of the possibilities.I'm copying this to the mountain folk who can arrange to follow-up
with some tests. We'll let you know what we find.Rob